Embedded Motherboards

01/05/2016

Emerging embedded hardware requirements are stirring up competition for motherboards and integrated systems while driving demand for more IoT-related systems integration services.

The global markets for embedded boards and integrated computer systems will see growing competition over the next five years, according to a new report by VDC Research (click here to learn more). The embedded hardware space is vast, continually evolving, and extremely fragmented with larger organizations often supplying several different board and/or system form factors as well as potentially a variety of SKUs featuring different configurations thereof. Systems integration services, in turn, are benefiting from the growing complexity of modern (connected) embedded systems and are seeing greater use for IoT designs.

“Complacency now will seriously hamstring the long-term development and growth potential for all embedded hardware players,” says VDC analyst Daniel Mandell. “Ramping requirements for processing performance, footprint, and scalability are forcing embedded hardware suppliers to adapt and adopt to new product form factors such as MicroATX, VPX, and xITX. Some more mature hardware form factors like ATCA will continue to see slight growth through the next five years, though new organic revenue generating opportunities for incumbent suppliers will be scarce and increasingly challenged by alternative architectures.”

For small-form-factor embedded systems, computer-on-modules (COMs) have emerged as a convenient solution for enabling cost-effective hardware flexibility. While a variety of COM standards have fragmented the market, some form factors such as COM Express and Qseven are expected to see strong market growth. Kontron is the longstanding frontrunner of the embedded COMs space, having pioneered the concept. Unlike COMs, the global market for PC/104 family modules is expected to remain relatively stagnant through the next five years as suppliers look to adopt newer and more heterogeneous form factors like EPIC.

The market share leaders for embedded integrated systems have focused their recent acquisitions and collaborations on facilitating software development and enabling broader industry application support. The potential acquisition of EMC Corporation by Dell could produce a new leader in the embedded integrated systems market. HP Enterprise has made some dramatic acquisitions in 2015 to expand its portfolio of LAN offerings and help its customers transition to hybrid cloud environments. To remain competitive with new and traditional market players, embedded systems suppliers must bolster their support and development offerings for more of the solution stack.

02/24/2014

VDC Research has made the journey across the Atlantic again this year to the Embedded World tradeshow in Nuremberg, Germany. It is always exciting to see what industry leaders will be announcing and exhibiting at the show, and this year is no exception. The following is a brief list of some of the major exhibitors and announcements to look forward to over the next few days:

AMDAMD will once again be present at Embedded World. AMD will be offering insight into their brand new Embedded G-Series SoC mini-ITX mainboard. The AMD booth will also feature live demos focused on casino gaming, industrial HMIs, factory automation, industrial tablets, digital signage, medical, security and surveillance, virtualization, and more.

ARMARM and Keil will be showcasing the latest edition of Keil MDK-ARM, MDK Professional, and ARM DS-5 Development Studio Professional Edition. MDK-ARM is a complete software development environment for ARM-based microcontrollers. Ease-of-use is a primary trait of the MDK-ARM development environment, though it is also powerful enough for a variety of demanding embedded applications.

IBMDespite popular belief, IBM will not be selling its chip manufacturing plant, and is instead focusing on finding a joint-venture partner to continue manufacturing its semiconductors used in personal computers, game machines, and other devices. Currently, microelectronics manufacturing accounts for less than 2 percent of IBM’s revenue, but considering IBM’s efforts to find a joint-venture partner to help increase the competitiveness of their semiconductor unit, we’re hoping for some exciting news at Embedded World.

IntelIntel, along with Wind River and McAfee, will be in attendance at Embedded World where the company will display how it is accelerating the development and deployment of intelligent devices, creating systems by connecting legacy devices to the cloud, and enabling end-to-end analytics to transform businesses with big data. Embedded hardware products such as Intel’s industrial motherboards with the newly developed Q87/ATOM/Bay Trail with fanless design, PCI BUS, and legacy serial ports will be on display amongst other innovative embedded systems.

RenesasRenesas will be busy at Embedded World hosting Europe’s first MCU Car Rally competition; the company is offering the opportunity for teams of students from across Europe to design a self-guided car from a kit of mechanical components, using hardware and software supplied by Renesas. Renesas will also be showcasing a variety of products including the R-Car family of SoCs, industrial Ethernet solutions, RX Functional Safety solutions, and more.

09/26/2013

The
winds of change are blowing through the embedded computer board and module
market. As 2014 approaches, recent market consolidations and reorganizations
will solidify. 2013 will go down as one of the most important years for
suppliers to make their voices heard by VDC. Why is this so important? In 2014
and beyond there will be significant shifts in demand for embedded board and
module products as seen by these results from VDC's 2013 survey.

Many OEM engineers will be designing their new products and,
for the first time they will be using embedded modules as opposed to other
product alternatives. At the same time, existing module users will be looking to migrate
to the latest x86, ARM and/or FPGA processors and module types. These OEM
engineers will value an authoritative 3rd party source to better allow them
to determine which product types are strongly supported and, which product
types not gain the necessary market traction. On a similar note,
these OEM engineers and other entities with interest in the embedded market are
looking to VDC to determine which suppliers are becoming the most resilient, innovative,
and successful in the markets they serve. VDC provides this industry-wide guidance by
taking a 360 degree view of the market but, even so, the supplier inputs we receive are, among the
most valuable.

At present, VDC has been in contact with over 90
suppliers we believe are significant to the market and after many initial
discussions have provided our top-level estimates for their company. We are
following these e-mails and calls with our 2013 survey that has detailed
estimates. If you have NOT received these e-mails, calls and survey and, you
believe your company should be represented, please contact us immediately. If
you have received this survey it MUST be received by Friday October 4 to ensure
any corrections or fresh guidance are included in the VDC models that drive our
reports.

09/09/2013

We expect the September 4th fire at a Hynix semiconductor fab producing
DRAMs to adversely impact suppliers of embedded products. The perception of a possible
supply disruption for DRAMs has already affected pricing. Although Hynix is
downplaying the event, the likely affect will be somewhere between a temporary
shortage and a larger industry impact that some investors are predicting.
Suffice it to say that the potential mix between a cleanroom and “thick black
smoke” would be disrupting, even if the equipment was not obviously damaged. It
is possible that materials and surfaces in some parts of the facility were
contaminated. If so, the effects of semiconductor or electronic circuit board contamination
may take months or even years to appear and this would have two possible impacts:

Some of the Hynix production equipment may
become less reliable, which can impact supply.

Some of the components Hynix produces at that
facility may have higher failure rates, particularly over the longer time
frames in which embedded computers are deployed.

Whether either of these two possibilities will actually
happen may be immaterial as embedded board and system suppliers are a cautious
bunch who may choose to lock in supplies of DRAM products from alternative suppliers.

08/27/2013

Technologies are evolving quickly in 3D printing and new
nano-materials. Will these new technologies impact the market for embedded
computing products? We believe the answer is, yes, but, not immediately. The 3D
printing process is too slow for the production volumes needed for many if not
most products that contain embedded computing. The first embedded market impact
of new 3D and nano technologies will be on the engineering processes that
create products not the products themselves.

Is the concept of printing electronic circuits new? Not in
the slightest. When I first began my engineering career in the late 70s, the
company I worked for produced laser trim systems. These systems were used by
customers to measure and perfectly adjust the resistors on ceramic modules that
had been printed using a silk screen printing process.

Exhibit 1: Screen Printed Thick Film Ceramic Module

After process steps for printing the circuit traces and
resistive components, the laser system would then be used to make continual
measurements as laser pulses cut into the resistive material. This would
increase the resistance until it met the target value. Prior to laser
technology, this same task would have used a sand blast method. In either case,
the modules would be completed by adding semiconductor dies and encapsulating
the module.

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are not really printed as much
as they are plated and etched. Because of the density and complex circuits
multiple layers are usually required. PCBs like the 70’s era ceramic modules
require significant manpower and expense to design and layout the circuits and
then create the necessary screens and photo masks needed to produce the
product. Even with all the automated tools that engineers can utilize, this PCB
development process can take a significant amount of time. If the first
articles produced are found to have problems, a re-spin adds more
time-to-market delay. It is worth noting that the equipment needed to create
PCBs and embedded modules are expensive and therefore most companies rely on
contract manufacturing specialists to produce them.

The same pictured module could be produced using a 3D
printer either on top of ceramic or, perhaps, using another material as a
substrate. The base might even be flexible, allowing the finished product to be
more adaptable. By precisely controlling the amount of resistive material, a
trimming process could possibly be eliminated. Even capacitors could, (in
theory), be printed.

Most importantly, a small engineering team could be testing
a prototype of a new embedded computer product within hours of developing it. Production
of the verified design would still be completed by the aforementioned contract
manufacturers, but the time-to-market would be more compressed and there would
far less uncertainty about having to make engineering corrections. At a
minimum, the ability to rapidly produce prototypes and proof-of-concept
products can level the playing field for smaller less capitalized embedded
computer suppliers.

In the distant future, as 3D printing capabilities and speed
increase along with the development of nano materials that can be used as “ink”,
embedded hardware may take on an entire new meaning. Consider an automotive
part like a bumper that was manufactured with all of the electronics needed for
a collision avoidance system completely embedded in the bumper’s material. As
the bumper is printed, the circuit traces and components could be printed or picked
and placed. Is this printing/embedded process feasible today? No, but like
previous disruptive technologies its time will come.

What should embedded suppliers do now? As 3D and material
technologies start to mature and stabilize, suppliers should begin to use 3D
printing to produce prototypes of embedded sub-modules. This exercise should be
conducted in parallel with traditional processes to test if and when time to
market compression exists. When the new technologies are proven, suppliers can
confidently develop new products because they will know that the engineering prototypes
they produce will be reliable proxies for their completed products.

07/30/2013

As you may recall, AMD won VDC’s Hardware
Embeddy for the new G-Series SoC processors. The G-Series line of these processors
continues to expand and this week provides another example of the broadening of that line to address lower TDP applications .

With a maximum Thermal Design Power (TDP) of only 6 Watts the GX-210JA SoC formally announced this morning consumes
a third less power than what was, until today, the lowest power G-Series
member. On average, and depending on the application, AMD projects the new
product will exhibit 3 Watts TDP. This may not seem like a big deal but it is
if you are an OEM looking to rollout a new product where the available budget
for power and cooling are low but, at the same time, the applications running
on the product required dual-core processing and graphics capability. The new GX-210JA
features a dual-core running at 1 GHz and a GPU core running at 225MHz.

How did AMD make this breakthrough while still using a 28nm
process? There were actually a couple of simple steps. First of all, they
turned off support for VGA as the analog driver components were guilty of consuming
more power than the benefits they supply to the few, if any OEMs that still use VGA. On a similar note, USB 3.0 was also not supported with the theory that USB
2.0 was sufficient for most applications. It is also possible that AMD uses a
few process tweaks and some form of selectivity to produce the GX-210JA.

Where
could this new AMD product find market traction? We certainly have a few ideas. First of all, we believe that Video Surveillance as a
Service (VSaaS) will be a significantly growing market for embedded computing suppliers. VSaaS will need thin-clients with graphics processing co-located at camera installations to perform the video transcoding needed for transmission to cloud
resources. In some places where surveillance cameras are placed, the available power and environment will not favor products that require fans. A 6 Watt TDP embedded processor can easily be used in fanless computers without the OEM needing to use extravagant heat sinks.

In summary, the GPU on the G-Series can be used for that VSaaS application just as easily
as it could be for supporting HMIs and displays. This brings us to signage,
gaming, and medical devices where informative and intuitive displays can differentiate an OEM’s product. The
225Mhz GPU may not have the performance for 3D or other challenging video applications
but, that is not an issue for many of the product types we mentioned. Less is sometimes a lot more.

06/19/2013

In 2013, VDC is seeing dynamic shifts in strategy for many OEMs as they respond to market pressures and position their
organizations for future opportunities. As the economy improves, the calculus
behind the professional services decision may change but most OEMs still prefer
to outsource non-core functions. Although the OEM may be losing some product
margin to pay for the services consumed, it is a small price to pay compared to
the expense and risk of bringing processes back in house. Even so, we see that
10% of OEMs will be considering re-joining the 20% of their peers that do not utilize
any professional services (Exhibit 1).

Exhibit 1: 2013
OEM cited current and future use of professional services

In these cases where the reduction in professional service
use is being considered by the OEMs, there could be multiple forces and
strategies at work. Sometimes it can be as simple as the OEM’s belief that if
they want to do something right, they have to do it themselves. It also can be
the result that recapturing the lost margins is worth the organizational costs
and risks given the improving unit volumes. Although improving margins through
insourcing may be part of the strategy, the largest gains are obtained when an
OEM can better differentiate their product and therefore charge a premium price
for it. Therefore, it is likely that OEMs with proprietary processes and
technologies that provide differentiation feel they need to insource to protect
their intellectual property.

Despite the advantages that insourcing may have,
a growing majority of OEMs see outsourcing as the best way for reducing
development costs while still being able to take advantage of new technologies.
A prime example might be the new 4th generation of i7 processors
being rolled out by Intel. If an OEM was going to directly embed them, they
would need to gain expertise and knowledge of the new Z87 Express chipset. It
also might be difficult for an OEM to even obtain those components because they
are likely to be in tight supply and the Intel alliance partners would be in a position to have
better access. For similar reasons, an OEM would be better off looking to an embedded
supplier for an AMD G-Series SoC based hardware product. In
that case, the OEM could be focusing their internal resources on activities to develop
an HMI application that fully utilized the embedded graphics capability. Doing so could
make their product sparkle in ways a competitor might find difficult to
duplicate let alone surpass.

05/03/2013

In this blog we will continue to provide a few more highlights
from the suppliers we spoke to at the 2013 DESIGN WEST / Embedded Systems
Conference that was held last week in San Jose.

Small Form Factor
Motherboards: At the VersaLogic booth we were shown several of their new small
form factor motherboards, including the EBX format Copperhead that is powered
by an Intel i7 processor and can support up to 3 independent displays. We also
saw their COM Express Mini format Falcon and EPIC format Iguana that are powered
by Intel Atom processors. The Iguana boards have a Mini PCIe card socket that
allows an OEM to round out its configuration with a wide array of connectivity,
storage, and other options. All of the Versalogic products we saw at the show
were designed for extremely high reliability in operating temperatures that
extend from -40C to +85C, and many of them can be ordered in Class 3 assembly versions
for mission critical applications.

Computers-on-Modules (COMs):
At the congatec booth we saw the variety of COM product lines they offer
including Qseven, COM Express, ETX, and XTX. If customers require high power
COMs in passive cooling configurations, congatec has patented spring loaded
heatspreader thermal interfaces that pull heat away from chipset components and
transfer it to the edge of the module. Depending on the OEM application, many
of the congatec Qseven products can be ordered with x86 processors from AMD and
Intel or ARM processors from Freescale.

Development
Platforms: At the ST Micro booth we visited with Ayla Networks who were demonstrating
their proof-of-concept secure M2M cloud connectivity solutions with the STM32
F3 evaluation platforms representing connectivity targets. We expect to hear
more from Ayla in the future, and you will likely be reading about them in our
blog. At the Texas Instruments booth we were shown the new BeagleBoard Black
open-source development platform. This impressive unit sells for only $45, and
has a 1 GHz ARM A8 processor, 512MB of DDR3 RAM memory, and an on-board HDMI.
The BeagleBoard can be expanded for multiple applications by using BeagleBone
“capes”. There were multiple applications highlighted, including a remotely
controlled electro-mechanical spider that had been fabricated using 3D printed
parts.

Ultra Low Power MCUs:
We noted that ST Micro had won an EE Times / EDN ACE Award for its Fully-Depleted
Silicon-on-Insulator (FD-SOI) technology that allows devices to run using 20 –
50% less power. On a similar note, Renesas was demonstrating the power sipping
ability of its RX111 group of MCUs that can wake up in 4.8us from a sleep mode,
where it only consumes 350nA. In addition, the RX111 has 6 safety functions to
verify/ensure that the device and supporting circuitry are working properly.

Industrial SATA III
SSD: The VDC team met with Innodisc and learned about their new SATA III
line of Flash Storage Products targeted at embedded applications in the
industrial market. These Innodisc
products use arrays of lower-cost Multi-Layer Cell (MLC) memory chips to
duplicate Single-Layer Cell performance and reliability at a significantly
lower price point.

Embedded Certainty:
At the XMOS booth we learned about their series of MCUs that were designed to
remove uncertainty from critical applications. This means that programs can be
developed where the signal timing is completely predictable. Roughly stated,
the XMOS MCU have removed I/O layers and other elements that create signal
latency or processing variables that can affect timing. There are many
applications such as digital audio and collision avoidance that can benefit
from MCUs with predictable timing.

Embedded Motherboards:
As the VDC EHW team is currently in the midst of our supply-side coverage of
the embedded motherboard market, we were particularly interested in seeing the
two new SuperMicro X9DR products. Both of these units were extremely powerful
and can be used in applications that require power-efficient processing of high
volumes of data. SuperMicro also sells its products into the traditional IT
space and, as such, has some system options that can be attractive to OEMs
supporting mission critical applications. These include built in
Uninterruptible Power Supply and automatic flash memory backup of system RAM
and CPU processes in the event of a power outage.

Stay tuned for part 3 where we will wrap up our observations
from the 2013 Design West show.

04/29/2013

Last week, while attending the 2013 DESIGN West/Embedded
Systems Conference in San Jose we presented the VDC Research Embeddy Award for the
best new embedded hardware product. As part of the selection process the VDC Embedded
Hardware team met with more than 30 companies to discuss product announcements
and a variety of industry trends impacting the embedded hardware market today.
Before we get to the award winner, we will start with a few highlights from some of the
suppliers we spoke to at the show.

Connectivity enhanced
Microcontrollers:Microchip usually makes several significant embedded
hardware announcements at DW/ESC shows and this year was no exception. VDC was given a detailed briefing on several
new connectivity modules that OEMs can use for many applications. If the OEM's
product already has a computing element, the new microchip modules are designed
to easily integrate the needed Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, MiWi, and/or
proprietary network types. If the OEM’s engineers have not settled on a
processing element to interface with sensors or product components they might
consider the modules that include integrated MCUs. The good news for OEMs is
that the selection of any of these Microchip modules will likely eliminate
product testing for overall FCC compliance and production test and calibration.
Microchip demonstrated how a lighting OEM might integrate these new products in
a way that would enable lighting products to be controlled in M2M applications
including network based portals and authenticated mobile devices.

Secure M2M: Our
next stop at the show was with Icon Labs and they were highlighting a new
barrier/firewall device that was well suited for supporting M2M on legacy
equipment in industrial applications. The unit we saw was targeted for a market
price of ~$1K but included many security elements using Intel Atom processing
and embedded software from Icon Labs’ partners including Wind River, ZiLog,
McAfee, and Green Hills.

New Rugged Handheld
Devices: At our next stop, the VDC EHW team was greeted by the enthusiastic
ADLINK team and they had every right to be that way. There were a number of
interesting products in many categories.
We were particularly interested in ADLINK’s foray into the enterprise handheld
device market with the IMX-9000 which includes barcode reading capability,
multiple connectivity protocols all contained in a stylish but rugged enclosure
that is said to withstand IP67 and 1.5M drop tests. While at the ADLINK booth,
we saw the new Advanced TCA processor blade. The new aTCA-9300 is well suited
for media delivery platforms because of the need for scalable processing to
deliver content in the needed forms and formats for the transmission and end
use by the target device.

Media Processing:
As a bit of background, it is not feasible to store content in all forms and
formats suitable for delivery to, and use by, the huge numbers of things used
to view them. This means that content has to be converted on the fly and that
means there is a huge need for embedded processing products to perform these
tasks.

ASICs and FPGAs: We
received updates on the latest developments in the world of ASICs and FPGAs. We
spoke with Altera who divides the majority of the FPGA market with Xilinx. Altera
provided an update on the SoC FPGA line that was introduced in late
2011. The Cyclone V and Arria V FPGAs incorporate ARM CPU cores with FPGAs to
allow OEMs to develop more powerful and flexible product designs while
economizing on needed circuit board space. One advantage that FPGAs normally have over
ASICS is that they take less time to design and can be brought into production
faster. If design issues are discovered at later stages, they can be corrected
faster and at lower cost. The Altera inclusion of ARM cores allows OEM
engineers to leverage many development tools that are available for ARM and
that theoretically increases the advantages over traditional ASIC processes.

On the ASIC side, we received a briefing by Triad
Semiconductor on their ViaASICs and the
associated development toolset ViaDesigner. The goals of these two products is
to eliminate the time-to-market and development cost advantages of FPGA
products over ASICs. The process works like this. In the semiconductor fab, the
wafers are started and arrays of circuits and functional blocks are laid down
but not configured and interconnected. These are then stocked until needed. An OEM
engineer then uses the development tool that determines how the Triad chip will
be configured. The data from that tool is sent to the fab and they create the
mask(s) needed to for the next steps in the wafer creation process. The next
steps lay down the layers needed for connecting the functional blocks creating
a finished product.

New SBCs:Advantech
highlighted a new compact design Single Board Computer (SBC) called the MIO-5290 that can be ordered with 3rd Gen Intel i3 or i7 processors.
With its ability to drive 3 independent displays with intense graphics, and the
availability to add various I/O modules to customize the product, the MIO-5290
is well suited for many applications such as intelligent signage. The VDC team
identified the MIO as one of the finalists in the Embeddy Award selection
process.

Another finalist in the Embeddy Award selection process was
WinSystems SBC35C series of products that utilize the 800 Mhz Freescale i.MX 6Q Industrial Processor. There were
several things that impressed us. The SBC35C board layout was very well thought
out with industrial bus connections all on one side and the other needed
connections on the other. The SBC35C can be run with Power over Ethernet (PoE)
or a single DC source. The last thing that impressed us was the fact that the
WinSystems team was showing their product the proper respect by handling the
demo SBC with an anti-static bag. If they do that on the show floor, you can
expect that their production and test process is also using similar
precautions.

2013
Hardware Embeddy Winner: And
now, without further ado, the winner of the VDC Hardware Embeddy award for the
2013 Design West / ESC show was AMD for their new G-Series family of SoC
processors that we believe will make a big impact in the embedded hardware
market.

04/11/2013

An interesting opportunity for embedded hardware suppliers
caught the attention of the VDC M2M Embedded Platform team. The opportunity was
highlighted in a Boston Globe article this week about a local police department
that equipped a cruiser with a $28K Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) unit.
There were a number of eye-popping statistics starting with the fact that the
unit apparently paid for itself in the first 11 days it was deployed. The ROI
was accomplished from revenues generated by identifying vehicles and drivers
with expired licenses, registrations, inspections, or other unpaid fines and
fees. ALPRs can also be used for parking enforcement particularly
in areas where civilian officials want to encourage shoppers with low cost short
interval parking spaces. In this parking application, an official uses an ALPR to detect commuters and/or store workers
that try to take advantage of the potential arbitrage and fine them.

Now let’s look at the $28K bundle of embedded hardware and
software and speculate a bit on what is likely to be involved. The ALPR cited
by the Boston Globe had the capability to read 1,800 license plates per minute
and cover 4 lanes of traffic simultaneously. It can make those readings at
differential speeds of up to 150 mph. This is a key factor because the unit is
mounted on a cruiser as opposed to a parking or toll-taking lane where only the
vehicle would be moving and the zone where the license plate would be is more
predictable. Therefore there has to be a camera system capable of capturing a
wide field at varying focal lengths and light conditions. The torrent of data
from the camera system has to be rapidly processed to identify license plates
and simultaneously perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on 4 or more plates
in the field of view. Additionally, the system has to identify the state that
issued the plate. This is challenging because many states like Massachusetts
issue multiple types of specialty plates for sports teams and other
organizations or causes. States also control costs by not replacing license
plates until they practically fall apart. Therefore, it is fairly safe to say
that there would be approximately $10K in optics and high performance
processing inside the ALPR to accomplish the OCR function.

What happens next is important. We are going to make an
assumption and it is a big one. We will assume that the ALPR generates data that
supports law enforcement but this data will not be a cornerstone for court
cases. This means that the raw video would not need to be compressed and stored
for future reference while preserving chain of custody. For example, if the
ALPR were going to be used for moving traffic or criminal violations it would
need to have irrefutable video evidence that identified the driver as well as
speed measurement data. Because of our limited OCR assumption, the captured
data only needs to be combined with time stamps, GPS coordinates and, perhaps a
few operational parameters. As a result, this limited data set would be in the
order of kbytes per record as opposed to Mbytes per second for full video
archiving. Even so, this still represents several thousands of dollars per ALPR
unit for the additional embedded sensing, processing, storage, HMI and
communication hardware.

In our estimate, the next part of the ALPR application would
optimally involve cloud-based Big Data resources. The ALPR would transmit
captured data in real time and processed for matches in multiple databases. The
response back to the police cruiser would have to be rapid to be effective. The
most effective ALPR supporting infrastructure would have to combine data from
all municipalities, states, and federal agencies relevant to a particular
region. Suffice it to say, the cloud-based and communication services could
easily amount to several hundred dollars per month for each ALPR deployed.

The Boston Globe article stated that there were
already 87 ALPRs deployed in the state with another 7 Boston area police
departments adding 21 additional in the next month. Considering that
Massachusetts alone has over 350 cities and towns but the entire US represents
over 36,000 municipalities, the potential market for ALPRs and the embedded hardware inside
them would appear to be a huge and rapidly growing opportunity.